At some point˜whether sooner or later˜U.S. troops will leave Iraq. I have spent much of the occupation reporting from Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul, Fallujah, and elsewhere in the country, and I can tell you that a growing majority of Iraqis would like it to be sooner.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11273.htm

If we are, as Jean-Paul Sartre posited, defined by our actions, most of the blame for the murder of more than 100,000 Iraqis belongs to our top government officials. But Bush’s armchair warriors couldn’t have invaded Iraq without a compliant and complicit United States military—one that, it should be noted, is all volunteer.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11264.htm

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The US has used torture for decades.

All that’s new is the openness about it

By Naomi Klein

In Iraq the dirty work is already being handed over to Iraqi death squads, trained by the US and supervised by commanders like Jim Steele, who prepared for the job by setting up similar units in El Salvador.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11271.htm

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Torture Degrades Us All

By Ben Saul

For those who think we live in an age of terror, it is intuitively appealing to believe that torturing one person to save many is the right thing to do. Discussion of torture should not be taboo, but arguments for it must withstand moral scrutiny.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11265.htm

They know, that information is power. So they fabricate it (Niger uranium documents), disseminate it through the corporate press (Judith Miller), pay for positive spin in that “free press” (Armstrong Williams), stage favorable press briefing questions, set up “unrehearsed” encounters between the president and troops (October 2005 teleconference), buy positive press coverage of the U.S. occupation in the “free” Iraqi presswww.counterpunch.com/leupp12092005.html

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Ex-Iraq envoy questions war’s worth:

BRITAIN’S former envoy to Iraq has conceded that the war may not have been worthwhile, in a BBC radio interview to be broadcast tonight.tinyurl.com/7cggq

THE row over treatment of terrorist suspects by the US showed no signs of abating yesterday as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she could give no guarantee that terrorism detainees would not be abused despite clear rules against torture.thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2373312005

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Bolton now whining about criticism of war on terror:

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said yesterday that the U.S.-led war on terror has undermined the global ban on torture. Her statement did not go over well with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, who called Arbour’s statement “inappropriate and illegitimate.”www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2005/12/bolton_now_whin.html

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U.S. Rebuffs Red Cross Request for Access to Detainees Held in Secret :

The United States said Friday that it would continue to deny the International Committee of the Red Cross access to “a very small, limited number” of prisoners who are held in secret around the world, saying they are terrorists being kept incommunicado for reasons of national security and are not guaranteed any rights under the Geneva Conventions.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11270.htm

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US government retreats on Padilla case:

The U.S. government, in an unusual retreat, urged a federal appeals court on Friday to set aside its ruling that allowed the United States to hold an American citizen as an enemy combatant without being charged.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11268.htm

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Fixing the rules of the game:

The Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.www.iht.com/articles/2005/12/05/opinion/edvoting.php

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Israel threatens Gaza economic siege:

Israeli television quoted Shaul Mofaz, the defence minister, as having told Abbas that unless a crackdown on fighters begins by Sunday, Israel will re-designate two commercial terminals on the Gaza boundary as border crossings, which could choke off Palestinian trade.tinyurl.com/anrd4

Lieberman is so much of service to the Bush Administration that the Prince of Darkness himself, Dick Cheney, bestowed praise upon him in a speech on December 6 to another gathering of troops.progressive.org/mag_wx120705

Here, is my latest attempt to guide you through the Bush Administration’s most egregious corruption scandals. The information comes to us courtesy of the federal government’s internal investigations into administration fraud, waste and abuse. The cronyism and corruption have hit a new lowwww.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=41800

More than three years before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American diplomats warned Saudi officials that Osama bin Laden might target civilian aircraft, according to a newly declassified State Department cable.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11262.htm

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What We Said vs. What We did

By Philip Gallo, Ph.D.

The administration lied about WMD, lied about their earnest intent to go to war only as the last possible option and only when it was demonstrably unavoidable, lied about every aspect of the Iraqi situation, did so from the start and at every available opportunity, and continues to do so to this day.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11259.htm

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Truth for the Troops

By Richard Cohen

If, as Samuel Johnson said, “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” then “support our troops” is very close by. It is being used to deflect criticism of the war in Iraq, or to rebut those who call for a pullout or question how incompetents seized control of the government in a coup by ideologues. In the lexicon of some, the only way to support our troops is to ensure that more of them die.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11261.htm

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Police find nine bodies south of Baghdad:

Two Iraqis were reported killed Friday in a clash with police in western Baghdad. Insurgents killed two U.S. soldiers Wednesday in the western Iraqi rebel stronghold of Ramadi, the U.S. army announced earliertinyurl.com/bqra3

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Nine Iraqis killed:

Nine Iraqis have been killed in a series of incidents throughout Iraq on Friday, according to security and medical sources.tinyurl.com/cjbr8

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3 Bodies Discovered:

Iraqi soldiers found two dead bodies in a western Baghdad neighbourhood where insurgents were seen roaming the streets on Friday morning, Interior Ministry sources said. BALAD – Iraqi police found the body of an intelligence officer on Friday.www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L09763816.htm

Hidden in Plane Sight:
U.S. Media Dodging Air War in Iraq: there are strong indications that the U.S. military command will intensify its bombardment of Iraq while reducing the presence of American occupying troops before the U.S. congressional elections next fall. With the White House eager to show progress toward U.S. disengagement from Iraq, we should expect enormous media spin to accompany any pullout of troops in 2006.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11258.htm

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The War for Latinos:

Jessica Sanchez poses an urgent threat to the US military. For a Pentagon stretched by stagnating enlistments and an Administration bent on waging a “global war on terror,” the question of whether this four-foot-eleven Mexican-born legal resident and others like her will decide to join the military has enormous geopolitical implications.www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051003&s=lovato

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Turkish PM offers blunt message on Iraq:

PRIME Minister John Howard has received an obvious but unwelcome message from his Turkish counterpart: Iraq is going badly.tinyurl.com/b48j3

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Iraq war debate enters new phase:

You might not expect a West Point graduate, Vietnam vet and career soldier to come out with a book titled “The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Addicted to War.” But that’s what Andrew Bacevich, who now directs the program in International Relations at Boston University, has done.seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/251384_tony09.html

The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and al-Qaida on detailed statements made by a prisoner in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3513439.html

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Taken for a ride in the ‘war on terror’:

Since the onset of the “war on terror”, the US has detained more than 3,000 people worldwide in a network of secret prisons established by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a number of regions, from Southeast Asia to North Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11260.htm

When the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is completed next month, it will retain the requirement that the Pentagon maintain active forces and reserves able to repel and occupy an enemy in one war and defeat a second enemy but not necessarily occupy the capital.www.washingtontimes.com/national/20051208-113131-7167r.htm

Under Bush (who believes he is fulfilling a divine mission), America’s regime continues its ongoing military, economic, and social assault on the Arab world, which according to the Christo-Fascists, is populated by “evil” Muslims ready to slice the white, Christian throats of “good” Americans if given the chance.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11256.htm

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Poland was main CIA detention base in Europe: : –

Poland was the heart of the CIA’s secret detention network in Europe, with bases there until recently holding a quarter of the 100 detainees estimated held in such camps worldwide, a human rights group said.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11263.htm

The task is now upon us all to better understand the criminality of our government’s aggression and, as citizens, to act accordingly to demand that our government adheres to international law.”www.counterpunch.com/brecher12062005.html

The Foreign Ministry condemned on Friday a civil lawsuit filed in the U.S. against former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter for the deaths of 14 Palestinian civilians who were killed in a targeted hit on a senior Hamas operative in 2002.www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/655820.html

Firestone, a multinational rubber manufacturing giant known for its automobile tires, has come under fire from human rights and environmental groups for its alleged use of child labor and slave-like working conditions at a plantation in Liberia.www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12860

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UZBEKISTAN: Forced labour continues in cotton industry:

As this year’s cotton-picking season wraps up in Uzbekistan, the authorities in the Ferghana Valley region have come under criticism for continuing the practice of using government employees and child labour to harvest the country’s main cash crop.tinyurl.com/d8fgp

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UK : EJF urges Govts, EU to stop Uzbekistan cotton imports:

Environmental Justice Foundation is urging on governments, retailers, buyers and consumers to refuse to buy cotton sold by Uzbekistan produced by forced labour at devastating environmental cost.tinyurl.com/bgfy2

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Rogue State? US Spurns Treaty After Treaty:

In 1989, the United Nations put forth the Convention on the Rights of the Child — a treaty that protects the civil and economic rights of children around the world.www.ipsnews.org/news.asp?idnews=31346

n 2004, federal lobbyists spent $2.1 billion — the equivalent of the gross domestic product of the Republic of Congo or the amount the U.S. government spends annually on energy assistance for low-income Americans. In that same year, candidates pursuing the presidency and seats in Congress spent more than $3 billion.www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=120690

Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was the military’s top commander during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, confirmed that four years before the tragedy he authorized a secret computer data-mining initiative to track down Osama bin Laden and operatives in the fugitive terrorist’s al-Qaida network.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11244.htm

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Open and Shut

Four years later, we still have ten big questions

By Jarrett Murphy

On Monday, December 5, the 9-11 Public Discourse Project˜a private group formed by 9-11 Commission members after their official mandate lapsed in 2004˜held a wrap-up press briefing in Washington, signaling the last gasp of official inquiries into the attacks four years ago. People who lost loved ones will never know exactly how the end came, if it hurt, what the final thoughts and words were. But other questions are more tractable. Here are 10 of them:www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11249.htm

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Sacred Terror

By Chris Floyd

Bush proudly held up this hideous system as an example of what he called “the meaning of American justice.” And the assembled legislators applauded. Oh, how they applauded! They roared with glee at the leering little man’s bloodthirsty, B-movie machismo. They shared his contempt for law — our only shield, however imperfect, against the blind, ignorant, ape-like force of raw power.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11253.htm

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Protecting The Torturers

By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith

Thousands of well-meaning people are mobilizing to pressure Congress to pass legislation banning torture. But the Bush Administration is maneuvering to turn it into legislation that would instead protect the torturers by eliminating a basic legal right.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11246.htm

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Keepers at the Gate

He Who Controls Television Controls the Masses

By Manuel Valenzuela

With Americans watching so much television on a weekly basis, discarding books of enlightenment for monitors of idiocy, preferring the drug of fantasy over the sobering realm of reality, no longer capable of analytical, logical thought, choosing to incorporate as their own the views, beliefs and opinions of corporate media, the keepers at the gate are free to do as they please, disseminating lies, distortions, manipulations, propaganda and fictions into our homes and the minds of our family, young and old, never discriminating and always flowing in the interest of the Establishment.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11242.htm

A Soldier was killed when a convoy struck an improvised explosive device in east Baghdad shortly after 10 a.m. Dec. 8.tinyurl.com/bpzqt

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U.S. Marine Killed: A Marine assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed in action when his vehicle was attacked with an improvised explosive device while conducting combat operations against the enemy in ar Ramaditinyurl.com/9ew8e

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Gunmen storm Allawi’s office :

Gunmen stormed on Thursday an office belonging to the Iraqi National Reconciliation Movement headed by former premier Iyad Allawi and set it ablazetinyurl.com/blxcy

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Iraq Insurgents Claim to Kill U.S. Hostage:

An Iraqi insurgent group said Thursday in an Internet posting that it killed a U.S. security consultant it had taken hostage. The claim’s authenticity could not be immediately verified.tinyurl.com/dklrs

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Mike Ferner: Not Even to Save Our Lives :

Jim returned from Iraq safely, but on a return trip this year, his father‚s worst fears were realized. On November 26, Jim was taken hostage in Baghdad, along with three CPT colleagues, Harmeet Sooden, also from Canada, Norman Kember, from England, and Tom Fox, from the U.S.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11248.htm

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Video: Captors Release Video Of Two Hostages (2):

Video of two of four hostages held in Iraq has been released by the group knows as Brigade of the Swords of Righteousness: this part of the video shows Briton Norman Kemberwww.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00110.htm

As much as 22 percent of the 21 billion dollars set aside by the US government for reconstruction projects in war-torn Iraq has been allocated for security, a senior official said Thursday.www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=15173

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Iraq Deployments may be Canceled:

The Pentagon has tentative plans to halt the scheduled deployment of two brigades to Iraq and instead send in smaller teams to support and train Iraqi forces in what could be an early step toward an eventual drawdown of U.S. forces.www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,82310,00.html

The Iraqi government imposed emergency legislation in two predominantly Sunni Muslim provinces for the 30 days and closed the borders with Syria until further notice.tinyurl.com/8dpt2

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How Many Lives Should Be Spent To Keep America From Economic and Social Collapse?:

It has been calculated that our present American economic life style involves importing 6.36 million barrels of oil per day at a cost to our GNP of $426 million dollars per day ˆ calculated on $67 per barrel oil. If oil goes to $100 per barrel, soldiers‚ lives become even cheaper.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11250.htm

A policeman, a military driver and two civilians were killed and an Afghan general was wounded in two separate attacks by suspected Taleban rebels in Afghanistan, officials said.paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=127707

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Conspiracy to Torture :

Torture is about acts: the blow to the head, the scream in the ear, the scar-free injuries whose diagnosis has become an international medical subspecialty. But torture is also very much about words: the whispered or shouted questions of the interrogator; the muddled confession of the prisoner; the too rarely tested language of laws protecting prisoners from “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment.www.thenation.com/doc/20051226/editors

he U.S. Army tonight awarded its advertising account, the government‚s largest, to Interpublic Group of Cos.‚ McCann Erickson, New York. The army said the contract could be worth up to $1.35 billion over five yearstinyurl.com/9uxoe

POLICE firing tear gas and rubber bullets blocked voters from reaching polling stations in several electoral districts and at least eight people were reported killed on the violent and chaotic last day of Egypt’s fiercely contested parliamentary elections.tinyurl.com/cdwum

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We Must End the Genocide :

On December 10th the world celebrates the 57th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet our government is ignoring the most terrible violations of these rights in the killing and enslavement of the people of Darfur, Sudan.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11252.htm

“This town has become very corrupt, there’s no doubt about it,’’ McCain said Sunday on “Meet the Press,” adding that he expects “lots” of indictments and that there is “strong evidence” of “significant wrongdoing” by some legislators.tinyurl.com/8ooe7

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U.S. consumer borrowing plunges:

The Federal Reserve Board reported yesterday that Americans’ borrowing fell by $7.2 billion (U.S.) at an annual rate in October, the biggest amount on record, with much of that decline reflecting a record drop of $5.6 billion, at an annual ratetinyurl.com/bjl7j

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Conservatives look at ending birthright citizenship for immigrants:

It’s been a cornerstone of American law since shortly after the Civil War: Children born in the United States become citizens, even if their parents are here illegally. Now some conservatives are taking aim at that birthright.www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13352283.htm

The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm’s way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11239.htm

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Torture Is an American Value

Reality vs. the Rhetoric

By S. Brian Willson

Instead of the recent euphemism “illegal combatants,” the United State in Vietnam claimed prisoners were “criminal” and therefore exempt from Geneva Convention protections. The use of torture as a function of terror, or its equivalent in sadistic behavior, has been historic de facto U.S. policy.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11238.htm

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Keepers at the Gate

He Who Controls Television Controls the Masses

By Manuel Valenzuela

With Americans watching so much television on a weekly basis, discarding books of enlightenment for monitors of idiocy, preferring the drug of fantasy over the sobering realm of reality, no longer capable of analytical, logical thought, choosing to incorporate as their own the views, beliefs and opinions of corporate media, the keepers at the gate are free to do as they please, disseminating lies, distortions, manipulations, propaganda and fictions into our homes and the minds of our family, young and old, never discriminating and always flowing in the interest of the Establishment.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11242.htm

An official of the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said: “We do not know the exact quantity of oil we are exporting, we do not exactly know the prices we are selling it for, and we do not know where the oil revenue is going to.‰www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=13770

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Al-Qaida’s No. 2 urges continued violence:

Al-Qaida’s deputy leader called for attacks against Gulf oil facilities and urged insurgent groups in Iraq to unite to drive out American forces, according to a videotape posted on the Internet Wednesday.www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/13346463.htm

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Abuse ‘widespread’ in Iraqi prisons:

Major R. John Stukey, a US Army doctor who served in Baghdad from January to June, says he personally treated about a dozen men who had been tortured and observed an environment of overcrowding and neglectwww.csmonitor.com/2005/1207/p01s02-woiq.html

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Behind Iraq politicians, an ayatollah holds sway:

Sistani himself can’t vote; he still carries the citizenship of Iran, where he was born, even though he has lived in Najaf for more than 50 years.tinyurl.com/clsm2

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CIA ‘emptied secret jails’ before Rice Europe trip:

Eleven leading al-Qa’eda suspects were transferred to a new CIA facility in North Africa, current and former officers told ABC television.tinyurl.com/8676q

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Rice’s answers on secret CIA flights “unsatisfactory”::

Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot has said the comments by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about secret CIA flights and detention centers for terrorist suspects outside the United States were “unsatisfactory,” Dutch news agency ANP reported Tuesday.news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/06/content_3886226.htm

The wife a Guantánamo prisoner began a hunger strike Monday, urging Bosnia‚s presidency to open talks with the U.S. government about releasing her husband.tinyurl.com/c2npn

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U.S. Christians March on Guantanamo:

“As a Christian, I feel compelled to reach out across national boundaries to perform one of the most basic acts of faith as described in the gospel of Matthew 25, I was in prison and you visited me,” explained Catholic Worker Matthew Daloisiowww.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20051206090750814

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AP Poll: Most Say Torture OK in Rare Cases :

Most Americans and a majority of people in Britain, France and South Korea say torturing terrorism suspects is justified at least in rare instances, according to AP-Ipsos polling.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/torture_ap_poll

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If it’s not torture, then it’s OK to use it on Cheney:

“We do not torture.”: That’s what President George W. Bush said, and we can believe him, right? After all, that whole water boarding thing is just a walk in the park. Here is how CIA sources described this technique to ABC News:tinyurl.com/c86ah

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Israel assassinates ‘top” Gaza militant:

An Israeli air strike killed a senior militant in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and wounded 10 other people, three of them children, Palestinian medics said.tinyurl.com/dxnrm

In a stinging defeat for prosecutors, a former Florida professor accused of helping lead a terrorist group that has carried out suicide bombings against Israel was acquitted on nearly half the charges against him Tuesday, and the jury deadlocked on the rest.www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5461632,00.html

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Ex-Professor Acquitted in Patriot Act Test Case:

Federal prosecutors had no comment Tuesday on what was, for them, a dismaying outcome after 13 days of jury deliberations and five months of detailed testimony. U.S. Atty. Paul Perez said he and his staff would review the case before deciding whether to retry Al-Arian, 47. Until then, he will remain in jail.www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11234.htm

According to Indictment, AIPAC Has Been Under Investigation Since Early 1999:

AIPAC is like a parallel government in Washington˜except that it fights any American effort that Israel wants fought. It is a parallel government whose spiritual heart is in Tel Aviv, not in Washington, DC. The trials of Franklin and former AIPAC honchos Rosen and Weissman, if they occur as scheduled in January 2006, may reveal the true subversive face of AIPACwww.wrmea.com/archives/November_2005/0511019.html

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Candidates for U.S. Senate weave Israel into campaigns:

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Robert P. Casey Jr. made clear earlier this year that he would compete for the Jewish vote.tinyurl.com/9e3qy

James Tobin, President Bush’s onetime New England campaign chairman, is being tried on one federal count of conspiring against voters’ rights and several counts involving telephone harassment. He could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.tinyurl.com/abo53

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Reporters Get Peek at Cunningham’s Bribes :

In the warehouse in the San Diego suburb of Poway, camera shutters clicked as appraiser Dave McPheeters peered into dresser drawers, jotted notes on a yellow legal pad and measured the size of Cunningham’s carpets.tinyurl.com/9pj8o

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Suit Decries New Secrecy in Government :

Breaking a tradition of openness that began in 1816, the Bush administration has without explanation withheld the names and work locations of about 900,000 of its civilian workers, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.tinyurl.com/atysh

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Spineless:

Democrats fear antiwar talk could backfire:

The critics said that comment could reinforce popular perceptions that the party is weak on military matters and divert attention from the president’s growing political problems on the war and other issues.msnbc.msn.com/id/10341418/

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Connecticut begins to boil with chatter of Lieberman challenge:

Connecticut seems to now be moving into a boil over Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D) continued efforts to be a mouthpiece for the Bush administration’s Iraq War policy.tinyurl.com/dw5v4